


I'd Suffer Hell If You'd Tell Me

by HereforThis



Series: Anarki [4]
Category: Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Title from a Hozier Song, bottom dark, cuz now I can't write it another way, if you look you can tell when Damien came out, part four, this is the last of the document I have so this is it y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22385308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereforThis/pseuds/HereforThis
Summary: The last part of the Anarki series, Dark and Anti have been separated for months stewing over their stubbornness and denying exactly how much they cared for each other. More mistakes will be made, but maybe they'll realize it isn't about failing, it's about failing together.
Relationships: Danti, Darkiplier/Antisepticeye
Series: Anarki [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1470005
Comments: 11
Kudos: 47





	1. Channels

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not kidding when I say this is all I've got left. If I tried to keep up with Heist and Chase and all the stuff they're doing now (I'm excited and proud!) I'd drive myself nuts. Also, last term of uni is right now, so I likely won't have time to contribute more. If I need to tag something else, please let me know in the comments, it's all about safety. Thanks for the support and getting through part 3, lol.

“Tasteful nudes, Mark? Really?”

“I fucked up, okay?”

Sean and Mark are shooting the shit at a con while they wait for ten o’clock signings to roll around. It was a peek outside the curtain (all recorded by Mark as some super spy maneuvers) that let Jack see the calendar images on a fan’s phone as she showed it to her friends. Several embarrassing moments and one army crawl under a table later, Jack had gotten out of Mark exactly what the fuck he was looking at. They tuck and roll into their waiting area, brushing off the questioning looks from the staff and other celebs. The American, already flushed from dodging “enemies,” blushes. 

“I just had to open my big stupid mouth and say it during a stream,” he explains. “How was I supposed to back out of that?” 

“Oh fucking lord,” Jack grins, scrubbing a hand over his face. “What compels you to have those kinds of ideas? I say a lot of shit on my channel, but it doesn't have to be that extreme.” 

“I don't know!”

“And you involved the egos?” 

Mark shrugs, busying himself with his camera’s functions. “Maybe.” 

“Dude.”

“Yes, okay? I only had so many ideas and people really like them.” 

“Fucking lord.” A low laugh spills from him at Mark’s predicament. It takes a certain level of stupid to back yourself into a corner about nudes. Of any of his friends, of course it would be him. 

“Shut up,” he replies halfheartedly, smiling. “At least I'm keeping my promises.” 

“It's the kind of promises you make that you have trouble with,” Jack says. 

“Yeah. Well. What about you? Figure out what you're doing yet?” 

Other than the demon video, Jack had taken last year as a reprieve. It was getting to the point where even the fans could tell he had doubts about YouTube and what he was doing. An entire fangame revolved around his more serious self arguing with his flippant persona. But he came back this year more confident, more focused on the human side of fame than the celebrity side. He went on tour, he vlogged, he played longer games and met more people. Pax went smoothly and he returned home refreshed. 

“Yeah, I figured most of it out. I mean, don't get me started on YouTube politics right now, but for the most part I'm fine.” He playfully shoves Mark’s shoulder. “Meanwhile  _ you  _ went off the deep end. How's the Barrel?”

“Currently trying to figure out the PlayStation setup in the back,” Mark answers. “I'm honestly still not over being able to drive to Cracker Barrel.” 

“I doubt I’ll ever understand your fascination with that place.”

Mark sighs dramatically. “And here I thought we could be friends, but alas! You’ve committed the ultimate betrayal of friendship.”

“Oh shut up.” 

“I don't think I'm capable of that.” 

One of the event workers gives them the five minute heads-up. Jack peers through a part in the curtains again. He tenses. 

“You put Dark in the calendar?” 

Mark isn't fazed, looking at him with a shrug. “Yeah?”

“That’s something else I’ll never understand,” he mutters. Mark crosses his arms as best he can with a camera. 

“What?”

Jack glances at him, not wanting to pick a fight but seriously not understanding. “I don't get how you two operate. Like, okay, firstly why?”

“Kinda had to at this point.”

“Right. Secondly, did neither of you have second thoughts about that?”

“He didn’t know until afterwards,” Mark admits. “But he hasn’t been active lately anyways so it  _ seems  _ like everything’s fine?”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m an idiot, but I’m not  _ that  _ stupid, Jack. I don’t have a death wish.”

“Well that’s good. I rather hoped you didn’t.”

Before they can start back on their usual comedic interactions, their time runs out and they have to go to their signings. As Jack heads towards his area, a familiar buzz rings in an ear. He blocks it out.  _ When we get home.  _

**_It’s been three weeks, Sean. You let me out tonight._ **

_ No. I said when we get home. That’s tomorrow. It’s soon enough. _

**_You know it isn’t._ **

_ What are you in such a rush for anyways? In a few morns we’ll be back at the channel. That’s your time.  _ He feels a chill run down his spine. Anti’s clawing the walls, buzz pitching to a whine. 

**_Three. Weeks._ **

_ Two days.  _

The other egos are out as well, half backing from Anti and half trying to calm him down. Jack lets them handle it, pushing everyone to the back of his mind. He’s very good at it too. He’s had a lot of practice, exercising how much control he had during the reprieve year. By the time he reaches his table, he’s completely focused on the outside world. 

Within, Anti is a fly in a jar. Marvin ducks in time for Anti to hit the wall he just stood in front of. Jackieboy hits the floor, a shoulder decking him and disappearing in a breath. Jameson gets a brief hold on his arm before his fist closes around nothing. The glitch zips around the room, knocking into the boundaries over and over. There has to be a way out, there has to be, he can’t even  _ see  _ out anymore, there’s nothing-

“Anti, you need to breathe!” Chase tells him. His form blurs incoherently. A knife. A knife would hurt the boundaries more. Tear them to shreds, tear them all down, let him out let him out-

“ _ Anti! _ ”

He freezes in place. Everyone shouted at once. What is he doing? He has his knife ready to slash the boundary. Jack’s boundary.  _ His sanity.  _ If he took that out, Jack would be too broken to inhabit. Everyone would slip out at once. Pandora’s box would open. And Sean would be angry and lost and confused and probably imprison the one thing he’d blame it all on; him. Boundary or no boundary, he’s stuck. He’s trapped, he’s stuck, it’s been too long-

Chase approaches him slowly. “Five sights, Anti.”

“Shut up, Brody. The world thinks you’re dead. Don't tempt me to make it a reality again.” 

“Five. Sights.”

His form wavers, voice still reverberating behind his movements. “You, Schneep, Jameson, Asshole one and Asshole two.” Behind him, the assholes take offense. He doesn’t care. 

“Four things.”

“My knife. Your cap. Fockin’ shit, I don’t know, your door and the boundary.”

“Three sounds.”

“Static. Breathing.” He shuts his eyes. Everyone’s presence is suffocating. Why are they all so...so...present? He killed them before, they just keep coming back, they won’t leave him alone. Why is it when he takes them out, the fandom fixates on them? Why does the fandom bring them back when they replace him with Jack? “Your heartbeats.”

“Two smells.”

“Blood. And the popcorn Jackieboy left burning.” Jackieboy rushes off, swearing. Anti’s breathing gets under control. Every pixel jitters but reigns back in. 

“One taste.”

“Bitter defeat.”

“That’s not-”

“You asked  _ me,  _ and that’s what I said.” His arm drops, his forehead hitting the boundary wall as he leans into it, kicking. “Three  _ fuckin’  _ weeks! Does he think I’ll just go away if he doesn’t look? That I’m some commodity let out on special occasions? I  _ hate  _ him, I hate him!”

“Anti, ve are seeing this, ve get it-”  
“No you don’t,” he growls, whirling on Schneep. “You’re perfectly content to be here. You’re all friends. You don’t even exist outside of Sean, you can’t understand!”

“Why don’tcha just leave?” Marvin asks. 

Anti stabs his door in frustration. Everything always comes back to this. Anti  _ isn’t  _ completely independent like he wants to be. When they really look at it, he isn’t like Dark. He isn’t some ancient entity that fought its way into the world and took form. It’s the other way around. He’s more like that storm they took down last year. A hybrid. 

A bloody hybrid. Power that’s been idle channeled through human creativity. His power is far older than his form is. He’s been able to pull it off, acting like he knows what he’s doing, using the power to back up his claims. It’s always worked. No one is that strong when they’re new. But Anti himself was made up by the fandom and Jack. Too much of his essence is here for him to leave entirely. Sure, he can manifest somewhere else, but he’ll always retain this shape. It’s what he is. A sentient virus finally given a name and uploaded to a format. 

“The boundary’s too tight,” he answers after a minute, miserable. Enough of his essence is here for Jack to restrain him. They’ve been at each other’s throats for months, ever since Anti returned covered in black blood which made him freak the fuck out. It wasn’t  _ his  _ fault he  _ happened  _ to obliterate another glitch during a night out, which just  _ happened  _ to get him into a mess that broke their tenuous agreement. 

“Why are you trying to get out early?” Marvin asks, the moron. Schneep makes a low comment that makes him laugh. Next to him, Jameson smiles silently. 

He materializes in front of them. “What are you laughing at?” 

One glare at Marvin makes him point to Schneep. “He said it! Something about your demon and your impatience.”

“Aw, come on guys,” Chase cuts in. “We were all at least lowkey staring.” Chase’s phone rings, and he checks the ID before reluctantly stepping away. Must be his girl. “Just try not to kill anyone again, okay?”

As soon as Chase shuts his door, Anti’s got a knife on the 100% real doctor. “What about my demon?”

Jackieboy seizes this moment to rush back into the room with popcorn. At the question, he brakes with wide eyes. As the scene unfolds before him, he and Jameson share the bowl. Marvin hides behind the two. 

Schneep swallows. “You ‘eard Brody, we were all looking, nozing to make a deal out of.”

“Staring at what?”

“Tasteful nudes!” Jackieboy pipes up. The next audible sound is Jackieboy’s panicked squeak. Anti appeared next to him, giving a warning cut to his arm. 

“Your phone.”

“Have it.” 

As soon as he hands it over, he searches for whatever they’re talking about.  _ Can’t believe he won’t let me look,  _ he fumes.  _ Fine. I didn’t want to look anywa-what the FUCKING HELL?  _ Oh, damn. Mark has a death wish. Dark looks wonderful in nothing but that bow tie, his demon on display for everyone. Granted, it isn’t Dark himself, but Mark’s portrayal which is as accurate as anyone can get. It kicks Anti in the gut. Dark is  _ his.  _ They fought, they fucked, rinse and repeat, but Anti knows him better than anyone else. Even with the sullen silence the last few months neither of them were willing to breach, Anti could still tell what he was probably doing. Only his pride kept him from tracking him down. 

_ This is what he meant,  _ Anti thinks miserably. He’s still pissed to shit about their fight but they always fought. Maybe he’s just touch-starved as a result of conditioning, maybe it’s because the other demons he meets on his few outings are pathetic in comparison, but...it sucks not having their stupid relationship anymore. 

There was one time they just stayed in bed, scrolling through their phones. Dark found out about crocheting. Anti found out about Dark’s love for music. They poked at each other and gave each other shit. And even after plucking Anti’s phone from his grip and tossing it to prove a point, there was that unintended smile, the little soft one he rarely gets to see. 

_ We were both too close.  _ Anti whips the phone across the room, shattering it over Chase’s door.  _ All lowkey staring.  _ He’ll carve their eyes out, put them in jars, and sell them for branding. 

Meanwhile, Sean signs and talks and laughs the hour away at the con. He barely pauses at the phone’s impact, sending a reinforcement thought and continuing on with his day. Several fans nearly make him cry from their stories and comments about finding his channel and being motivated again, him being able to make them laugh when nothing else did. He promises more Fortnite and PMA callouts. It hits him again that this is his life; he’s just a guy, but he affects so many others that he can’t wrap his head around it. Just a couple years ago he was a kid in the middle of nowhere. Further back, a college dropout. But now? Man, things are surreal. 

A few hours later, after everything ends and he’s allowed to walk around freely, he finds Mark laying on the floor of the main area with his camera. “Do I even wanna know?” he asks. 

“Don’t panic. This is totally normal, I’m a professional, do not try this at home.” He switches the angle from upside down to Jack, pressing the zoom with a focused look. A few people mill around, watching him and grinning. The instigators, then. “Wait - there, right up the nose. What a sniffer.”

Jack makes a face at him, now super aware of his nose. “The hell do you want my nose for?”

“Well, you know what they say about noses.” 

“What?”

A pregnant pause fills the air. “I don’t know. I was hoping you - how about you answer?”

“Noses are...good for...fuck, warding off ghosts?”

“OooooOOOOoooo!” They look at each other for a minute before cracking up. A pressure releases in his chest like a deep exhale.

“Come on, man, why are you actually on the ground?”

“I tried to stay low. Aaaand I couldn’t get back up. But I, Markiplier the Great and Suave Smart Person, just went with it. It’s an interesting angle down here.”

“Oh, how smarticle indeed sir.” Mark lowers the camera and lets out an exaggerated sigh. He stares at the ceiling for a moment before heaving himself upright. Jack holds out a hand, which he takes, and pulls him to his feet. “There ya go big boy.” 

Immediately, the camera is in his face again, the lens audibly zooming in and out. “THIs is the FAmous Jack sept-EEK-eye,” Mark is saying, stepping awkwardly around him like a Jim. “FoUnD in the GlOriUs conVENtiON aRea.”

“Rawr means I love you in dinosaur!” Jack cheers, double fisting the air. “Lolz random!”

“My GOD Jim, it AppeARS as IF we Have stUmbled acrOSs the sept-EEK-eye in the FAMous ‘LOLZ X D’ phaSE of its DeVELopment.” 

“I’m a special snowflake! Get out of my room!”

The people around them chortle and snort. Jack can’t help but grin at their ridiculousness. This is their normal. Something in their demeanor releases tension. He misses normal. Well, he misses the old ease they had in joking around. Things can’t be the same as they were before he indirectly almost killed him over a year ago. They were still on edge after waking up in October to multiple and matching injuries, skyping to try rebuilding what happened based on their scarce memory. But as they banter and run amuck, he can’t help but wonder if close is good enough. 


	2. Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Mark chapter!

The camera is running low on battery, he’s late according to his schedule, and at least two very awkward encounters with fans have occurred since the signings. In other words, Mark is doing great. 

He didn’t know how to explain it. A weight was lifted from him. He walks unburdened. His mind no longer tethers so sharply to the earth. It’s beautifully and blissfully  _ normal.  _

He can do whatever he wants, not that he’d tell anyone that. He could tell from Sean’s barely-off tone that Anti was still kicking and screaming in there somewhere, wearing down his friend’s nerves and possibly sanity. Jack no longer had quiet moments to take advantage of and sleep during. Meanwhile here Mark was, pushing the limits, poking the bear and receiving no indication anything was ever in the cage. He put  _ tasteful flippin’ nudes  _ out into the universe and got away with it. He could really start focusing on what he wants and who he wants to be. He could house Amy for longer periods without worrying she’d wake to someone else in his place. Start being a man of his word, however stupid the word may be. The flipside of that is now there’s no safety on the gun, no suppressing silencer on the barrel. What he thinks of, he deals with alone. 

It’s so much better to figure things out without a voice constantly belittling him. It’s better to be authentic and his naturally impulsive and caring self than impaired with the constant edge of worry and doubt. Not that he doesn’t still doubt himself. Seriously, who the fuck makes a tasteful nudes calendar and then promises to sign them all? 

But it’s still weird when he and Jack start joking about noses and nothing leans into his thoughts. Usually, there was a seeping molasses pressure peering in with unreadable intent when Jack (and by logic, his demon) were physically nearby. Now there’s nothing, a lack, a tangible absence. He’ll send a deliberate thought down its familiar path and occasionally receive the faintest brush of acknowledgement. A small seed of guilt niggled in him at the timing. Whatever happened on Halloween last year, Dark didn’t care to play anymore. 

It’s highly doubtful that his Jack/Anti dream had much to do with it. Come on, it was only a weird dread-induced coping mechanism to make Anti less of a threat in his head. Dark had showed up looking furious. That was because he was late...right? Right, had to be. Nothing else made sense. He didn’t feel threatened by the glitch anymore, not since last August, so he wouldn’t have a problem with the appearance in Mark’s imagination. 

Everything ran in circles. Mark doesn’t know what to make of it except the best. 

After messing around as a Jim, wandering around the con for hours, and reconnecting with Ethan and Amy, it comes time to head out. He promised Jack a ride to the airport, so he begins tracking him via text.

**M: heading out to barrier, where u at wierdo**

**J: barrier? Or barrel?**

**M: potato, potato**

**J: no, I know potatoes, that no potato friendo**

**M: ok but where r u tho**

**J: back towards the signings. Where did you park?**

**M: parking garage, lower level near the elevator**

**J: then i’ll meet u down there weirdo**

**M: <thumbs up emoji>**

**J: <fish emoji>**

He and the others find him by the elevators. They laugh and joke and sing horrible karaoke. Jack hugs everyone goodbye and gets on his flight to start his tour. In all that time, including the awkward bathroom breaks and long moments waiting in lines, nothing goes wrong. It’s so goddamn  _ normal.  _ Mark has never been happier. 

And then he witnesses the storm after the calm. 

He has a lot of his own shit to worry about still. Projects to plan and scripts to write and videos to catch up on and the like therefore as such. He's hoping to really get started on the Damien animation project, and write a little more of Heist to chip away at that possibility. But the fandom suddenly lights up after Jack returns from tour. He only has to glance at Jack’s Tumblr dash to see all the reblogged theories and art. 

Something’s gone terribly wrong with him. The egos are in full force over Jack’s channel, and there’s no explanation video to calm the theories this time around.  _ Anti is back,  _ they’re saying.  _ Schneep is out. Chase is alive. Marvin’s doing Let’s Plays. Jack’s in a coma.  _

Now, he knows Jack. Mark knows how much Jack loves to dick with people, and Robin can edit anything like a dream. Jack’s also in love with ambiguity, making the perfect recipe for theorycrafting. There were several videos on the channel that messed around with egos and didn’t intend anything other than to have fun and revive the community. Yet there’s something incredibly off about it all, and if anyone was supposed to check in on him, it should be the other YouTuber with an actual demonic problem, no matter how recently absent. Mark breaks down and calls him one evening, never minding the time difference. Jack picks up. 

“You realize it’s like, 3 in the mornin’, right?” He sounds groggy, and Mark feels the guilt creep up for interrupting what little sleep Jack gets. 

“Whoops, sorry. Just checking in, you know?”

“Checking in. At 3 am.”

“It’s 7 here, I forgot, I’m sorry.”

He hears a heavy sigh. “Listen Mark, I get the whole ‘friends’ thing and all, but check on ‘m when it’s fucking daytime, alright?” Then Jack hangs up. 

It takes Mark a full four minutes and Amy coming into their kitchen idly asking about the call to realize something is extremely wrong with the dialogue. Because in the last bit, Jack was speaking in the third person. They had a line. No fucking with each other when it came to their murderous counterparts. They couldn’t survive dicking around with that. Sean would never cross that line to keep a running fandom joke, much less on a private phone call, no matter how tired and cranky he was about being woken up. Sean’s intelligent and caring beyond belief, he wouldn’t do that to Mark. 

The alternative to Jack dicking with him is somehow so much worse. 

But what is he supposed to do? He can't drop everything and go to Brighton, not if he doesn't want to raise suspicion or break his tenuous peace with Dark. 

Fuck,  _ Gab.  _

**M: hey Gab, everything ok over there?**

**W:** **_The number you have contacted is no longer in service. Please check the number again._ **

Oh no. 

“What's going on?” Amy asks, bouncing to his side and leaning her head on his shoulder. 

“Did Evelyn change her number?”

Amy’s brow furrowed, her hand drawing her phone from her pocket. “No? She didn't say anything about that to me.” Mark shows her his screen, at which she shakes her head and opens her own thread. She scrolls through the chat. “Nope, nothing here about it. She might've accidentally blocked you or something.”

“I think it's worse than that.” He updates her on the phone call in a low, hushed tone. At some point, Chica pads into the kitchen and worms her way into pets between them. He loves Chica for knowing when he's distressed. 

After a minute of silent contemplation, Amy looks at him with concern. “Do you think this has anything to do with last Halloween? You looked pretty roughed up when I came home. This silence you have going on could be a trick to get you off your guard.” 

“I just don't get why he would need me off my guard  _ now.  _ If that's what he wanted, the panic after Halloween would've been perfect. And he barely acknowledges anything anymore. He's too obsessive to suddenly not care.”

Her hand rubs his back in soothing circles. “Maybe Dark’s not in on this then. You guys confirmed Anti existed, right? What was his main thing, attention?” 

Mark looked at the invalid message again. Of course his phone wouldn't be able to contact Ev. She lived with a glitch. Yet Amy could talk all she wanted. “But I don't get why everyone else came out too. All the egos.”

Amy’s lip pouted in thought. “Maybe that's Jack covering his bases. Switching everyone's focus to give Anti less attention.”

_ Maybe it's the egos taking attention away while Jack recovers.  _

“That could be.” 

Amy ruffles Chica’s ears. “I'll call Gab when it's a decent hour tomorrow. Then we can figure out what to do.” She waits until he nods, then kisses his cheek and goes to find her shoes to pick up takeout. 

_ I don't suppose you have anything to add?  _

Nothing. 

Of fucking course it’s nothing. It isn’t a complete nothing. Dark’s more present than he’s been in months, still faded and unattached, but close enough to reach. Close enough to glance. For a second, it’s as if their eyes meet, minds brush, before Dark turns his nose up and leaves again. He leaves Mark with a thought.  **_Robin_ ** _.  _

Oh titty sprinkles, Robin. He’d know what was going on. Mark never got around to getting his number in his new phone; he’d have to ask Amy or Kathryn. Mark crouches down to Chica’s level and gives her playful cuddles. His mind is too caught up in this new problem, and petting the pup always helped. She pants happily. 

After Amy returns with food and they sprawl on the couch, after everything’s decently cleaned up and he gets a moment to himself, he scrolls through Tumblr to learn as much as he can about what’s going on across the pond. He looks at gifs with an editor’s lens, trying to reason out Robin’s thought process. There were videos with out-of-place phrases, videos with Jack playacting, cut off outros, blatant ‘appearances’ by several egos, and dialogue. But that’s just it; if this were Anti, he wouldn’t bother to put all this shit up, and he definitely wouldn’t bring everyone else into it. 

Robin will know what’s acting and who’s showing up. Amy will call Gab and make sure they’re alright. Mark just has to trust that Jack’s got this figured out. In the meantime, his own ego trips are being scripted…


	3. Incorrigible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dubious, and I cannot stress this enough, consent.

Dark doesn’t need to do anything to make Mark suffer. The idiot already has to put himself through ghost peppers and days-long exile of steady work because of his own foot in his mouth. When it comes to YouTube, Dark remains, as ever, unconcerned. 

What he gained from last year was perspective. He needed to prioritize again, badly. Working with Anti expanded his networks. At first his web was a mere continent wide. Slaughtering TJ’s coup d'etat gained him access and established his presence, so that when he and the glitch tracked the other unfortunate video monstrosities down, no one who knew anything about survival lent an appendage to save the bastards. Then rumor got around about where his and Anti’s alliance sprung from, which was a delightful excuse to execute more people. And while killing people is next to sex and crisp clothing on Dark’s “Likes” list, it sadly did not make connections to other demons. That required his other skills. 

Australia wasn’t too difficult. The storms were more tropical down there, but not unbeatable. And the winds had always feuded amongst themselves, especially the cool indifferent northern winds and the heavier southerlies. This was a rare instance in which TJ’s demise paid off in Dark’s favor; by taking out a northerner, he secured the south. Then came the bodies of water, oceans with depths concealing entities far beyond his own expansive imagination who held little interest in politics. He accompanied Mark whenever the boy travelled and made more connections. Even Europe, fraught with the sickening thrill of being discovered by the ruling demon, he subverted to a degree. 

It was all fine and good for the first few months. He was even able to ignore Anti completely during Mark’s tour across the pond. The boys thought it some sort of reprieve. Five things, five things, five things to have fun with. How adorable. 

But the time kept dragging on. The only foes left were either suicide missions or dinner mints. Everything was dreadfully dull while he bided his time, waiting to see if his risk paid off. From his thoughts, it was a possibility Anti would admit some reciprocity, but not a probability. And for some reason, it mattered to Dark.

It drove the others crazy. One would think Dark being inactive wouldn’t be that big of a deal, especially with his own abode to keep out of the way,  _ especially _ since he nearly massacred them out of impatience. Yet one by one the egos poked curious noses in until he grew irritated and nearly broke Google’s nose. By May, Wilford had enough.

“Go out with me.”

Dark raises a brow at the request. Normally he wouldn’t give much attention to it, but Wil had appeared, quite literally, in the aftermath of Dark happening across an expendable in this half bored, half frustrated state. The former colonel doesn’t bat an eye at the blood. But there were manners when it came to murder, and interruption violated them. Aftermath was for savoring. 

“Fuck off,” he exhales. 

Wil bounces forward anyways, always a master of causal touches and invading personal bubbles. “Come on, baby doll, you have to let off some  _ steam.  _ Haven’t seen you smile in  _ ages.  _ Wanna dance.”

His fingers brush Dark’s shoulder. He halfheartedly shoves it off, Wil transporting to his other side to avoid further assault.  _ Why didn’t I kill him? _

**_“Because it didn’t work,”_ ** Wil adds with a smile. At the next touch, Dark’s wrist is caught mid-strike. Wil holds it there until he’s calmed in his grasp, watching him with soft brown eyes lighter than his own. The wild, coiling insanity brushes against Dark’s mental defenses like a mangy cat. Reflecting on it, the two always had more familiarity than others when it came to telepathy. No recoiling or accusations of privacy violations. Wil’s thumb traces upwards to keep the demon’s hand open as it relaxes. Then soft lips press against his palm before letting their hands swing idly between them. Wil always liked kissing deadly weapons, lethal things. Dark knew the feeling. A bit of crimson blood colored Wil’s lips before he licked it away. Dark hadn’t been as pristine as usual. His palm had blood on it. It didn’t make a difference.  **_“Anytime, anyplace, anyhow,”_ ** Wil appeals again.  **_“Let’s go have fun.”_ **

Dark rarely if ever gave into Wil’s pleading tone. The man had lost track of time, space, life, death… One moment he could be begging on his knees for a dance and the next moment he has his Magnum aimed and loaded at his head ‘just for fun’. All the demon did was nudge him the first step, but the wreck Wil made of himself was beautiful in its absolution. Not to mention Wil’s ability to slip others into his madness, speaking in their minds with an offhand ease, making them question their strongest thoughts simply by prodding. He’s unpredictable and dangerous and out of his mind. However today…

He let the fuzzy blanket of Wil’s madness snuggle up against his thoughts as they spoke, unclenching a tension he knows has been there a while. The carefree, no consequences existence called out to him even as it fought against his obsession with control. He wouldn’t lose his head, but perhaps he could have some fun. Months have passed since Halloween. It’s about time to relieve stress. Wil grins the moment he feels the shift, a brief clear shine that magnetizes the air. 

The next moment, they’re in a club in the jazz age, location unknown but full of eclectics. Women in flapper dresses, men in suspenders and pinstripes, some openly carrying. Exactly one of Wil’s scenes down to the pink button-ups and vests, like the pink and yellow Wil is suddenly bedecked with. 

“Jazz, eh?”

Dark peers at him. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“Jazz it is then!” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Wil drags Dark by the wrist to the thick of the throng. This isn’t even Wil’s time, it’s years before he and Dark met, yet they weave through the lounge lizards and jukebox junkies as veterans. 

They lose track of the world as the night spins on. Neither are weighed down by hosting and the alcohol changes quality with the establishment. Flappers turn to disco queens and ravers, the lights changing from dim yellow to bright neons and back to firefly glows. The music stays the same even when the instruments do not. No matter when they are, there’s sweat, booze, tunes, and dancing. More than a couple times the definitive smell of drugs permeate the haze. He estimates they've gotten at least 3 contact highs. Familiar faces blend with the strangers, even JJ when they hit the 30s, sending an uncomfortable pang through Dark’s chest. 

Wil notices and stops making small talk with Jameson, keeping the wheels turning and the years indecipherable. Each time he grabs Dark’s wrist, his thoughts dissipate and his balance is thrown. The two become blurry and insubstantial, forms switching to adapt. Sometimes, Wil seems younger, smoother and full of new hope. At others, he’s matured and nostalgic, hair partially turned bubblegum pink. Dark’s own form shifts as well, gaining curves to enchant free drinks and roving eyes, losing them to pursue other hungry gazes, never staying quite solid enough for anyone to get a grip on. 

It’s been centuries since Dark had a form that gave him this dizzy, rubber band feeling of semi-weightlessness and semi-heaviness. Residing in the house didn’t let him get drunk or feel up strangers or soak in desperation. It especially didn’t operate so far out of people’s heads or make him feel so sharply on his own. The night drags on forever. 

Anti should’ve come around by now.  _ Stop. That’s stupid.  _ But no one else could keep up with him.  _ Never need people more than they need you, idiot.  _ But things aren’t as fun anymore.

During a few lucid instances, he reels himself back from the precipice. That’s when Wil unerringly tracks him down and numbs his anxiety, guiding him to the outskirts for some water before spinning him back into whatever decade crowd they’re grooving with. Maybe this is what everyone meant by loosening up. He hasn’t danced with anyone in decades. Hasn’t had a drink since Mark quit, just to get rid of the habit. Hasn’t gone out in anything less than his suit or his human. Tonight was for fun. Life needed a bit of madness.

At one point, Dark breathes less sweat-dampened air on the edge of particularly rowdy clubbers who look fairly modern. He leans against a wall to regain his bearings. White shirt unbuttoned and tied at the top of slim ribs, jacket over a shoulder, hips snug in slacks and his tie hooked through a belt loop. He could switch out of his suit entirely but there’s no need. When he overheats, he takes a break and clears his head. It’s a reminder of what he is and a lovely, half-drunken power trip. As a force of habit, he lazily scans the room, people-watching. He could destroy everyone in the room if he wanted. These humans have no idea how vulnerable they are, how helpless they would be, and one flick of his finger can bring them all to their knees however he wishes. 

Wil’s at the center of the dense inner circle. Some girls tip back their third shot at the bar. A guy in red lurks near the restrooms. Seedy, full of wildly abandoned morals, bursting at the seams. Yes, this is a good place. Up until Wil finds a chick. 

It’s one that another, larger guy had been eyeing since the two got there. Wil sweeps her off her feet with stupid humor and eccentric yet charming gestures, she tilts back another round and drapes herself on broad shoulders, all good fun. Dark isn’t concerned. It’s hardly the first time either of them have gone off with someone tonight. There’s a lovely freedom in living in every new moment without question for the next. But this guy lurches forward with violent intent, clearly pissed that the girl he’d been admiring and chatting up was leaving him alone for an asshole in pink. 

If left to Wil, there would be unexplained disappearances and possible gunshots. Hormones and anger roil under the man’s skin, igniting delicious potential. Dark intervenes instead, gliding smoothly between the trio. “Twenty minutes, Wil, or I’m leaving you behind.”

“We can have a  _ lot  _ of fun in twenty minutes, don’t you worry sweetheart,” Wil replies, half to him and half to the girl. Bright browns wink at him.  **_Tonight is for fun,_ ** he reinforces with one last look. Wil bounces forward, kissing his forehead and giving a reassuring nod that he’ll be punctual. Without telling himself to, Dark relaxes further, thoughts dissipating under Wil's mental blow. Then the other slings an arm around the woman.

A fevered pressure crowds Dark’s shoulder as the couple giggles away, the guy now uncertain and indignant. He’s taller (not that it’s much of a feat), and Dark uses that to look up through his lashes. “Any suggestions what I should do for twenty minutes?”

Hazel eyes trace his figure, which might be ambiguous. Honestly, Dark lost track two joints ago. It’s just comfortable. The aimless emotion latches onto the pretty thing in front of him, the guy’s weight shifting as he reorients himself to new prey.  _ That’s right, look at me, I’m actually better than the other one, how lucky you are.  _ “I can think of a few things, I’m sure.”

“Mm, I better not be disappointed.”

The guy gives a confident, slightly condescending look. “The last thing you’ll be is disappointed.” Dark smirks, the guy’s condescension melting. As soon as they’re alone, he can have his way and take the man apart, however he wishes ( _ “Rip him limb from limb,” Celine hisses. “Find out where he breaks,” Damien muses _ ). He lets him lead the way to the side exit, slipping out of the roaring din of the club and into the muffled, muted quiet of the alleyway. The night air is cool, a beer-scented breeze channeling through the bricked corridor. Sticky humidity makes skin drag against skin when the guy’s hand goes for Dark’s waist, backing him to the wall. 

The stranger leans in and halts, eyes bulging from their sockets and grip turning rigid. Something hot and wet douses Dark’s front. It takes a second for Dark to realize it wasn’t his fault. Before he can think  _ what the fuck? _ the man drops to his feet, dead from a gaping wound in his sternum. Dark’s power is in his palms before his heart can beat again, jacket forgotten on the ground.

“So this is what ya’ve been up to.”

Dark’s instinct is to snarl, and the animalistic sound rings off the walls. It’s the glitchy prick that stands before him. He thought he’d be more collected, more prepared when he next saw Anti. Now, without expecting it, all the anger and loneliness and resentment threatens to burst him at his seams. “You’ve no right to kill my playthings,  _ asshole.  _ I’ll give you five seconds to fuck off.” The unspoken threat lies in the fact that when Dark says five, he means three. 

Anti tosses his blade to the side, looking pissed as if he has the goddamn right. “So what, you only fuck desperate things that can’t and won’t live without you?”

Dark shoves him against the far wall of the alley, power flaring a deep burgundy. “So what, I can’t have any fun because you’re too pathetic to admit you’re wrong?”

“I was never wrong, Dark. I didn’t need you. I still don’t,” Anti spits, advancing. 

“Then why are you  _ here, _ Anti?” 

“You took Australia. You fockin’ took Australia, you cunt.”

Dark leers up at him, seething and glaring right into stupid green and blue irises. “It wasn’t very difficult. What, you want it back? You couldn’t keep it the first time-”

“No one would ever stay loyal to you if they saw what a bloody bitch you are, whoring yourself out at clubs to humans-”

“As if you behaved any better, Glitch Bitch, coming to me to whine about the Power Hours-” 

Anti grabs his hips to pin him to the brick. Dark curses and hits his chest, losing balance. A red glint misses its target. Accented disgust pours from the other. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

“None of your fucking business!” 

“You missed at point blank range.”

“Who gives a shit?”

“And what’s with the downgrade, hm?” A sneaker nudges the cooling form on the pavement.

“Not much of a downgrade from you.” He’s sure he can come up with better banter, but his head is spinning and Wil gave him another mental nudge a few minutes ago and god, dim lighting and rich fury make shadows frame Anti into something pretty. It’s all so unfair.

“The control freak, drunk and stupid.”

“Least I’m having  _ fun. _ ”

Anti’s expression shifts, his hand pushing Dark’s slacks down. He quickly changes into his usual form, shoving him again at the dissatisfied noise. The glitch lost the right to explore anything else. Jostling past that, Anti’s fingers dip low, his body caging Dark until his suffocating warmth is all he can feel. 

“You’re fuckin’ loose.” Feeling the calloused pads of familiar fingers sends fevered waves through him, flushing his cheeks. It’s been months since he’s been this close to him. Something crackles in Anti’s static. “He wasn’t the only fun  _ you’ve  _ had tonight.” It doesn’t matter that he missed Anti, it doesn’t matter he might love him, he needs to play him off, he needs to...needs to stay in control. 

“At least I haven’t made a public idiot of myself. Releasing all the egos? You’re running around like demented children.”

“They’re puppets on strings, I wouldn’t expect  _ you  _ to understand anything about controlling other egos.”  _ Or other demons,  _ the unspoken words finish.

Dark starts a stinging retort that dies in his throat when Anti presses his fingers in. It’s easier than it should be, still loose from someone earlier who took the edge off but couldn’t sate him like the moron in front of him. His clawing hands stop pushing, never wanting to really get rid of him anyway. But his pride, his damn pride, it can’t take this sitting down, it  _ won’t  _ take this sitting- “Is that what you tell yourself?”

A cruel twist of digits makes him writhe. “‘Course, ‘cause it’s true.”

Dark should push him away. But even with what he’s saying, even with the rough treatment and accusations and defiance, it’s  _ Anti.  _ Whether it’s the alcohol or the contact high or the isolation these past months, his essence reaches out, clings to his aura and draws him closer. He missed him, dammit. None ever came close to taking his place. Anti’s scent faded, even from the jacket Dark stole, but now it’s clear and strong and assaulting his nose. Memory failed to keep the sharp brightness of his eyes potent, letting them cut into his now obviously underdeveloped defenses. And his voice, high and lilting when emotion glitches his words, it brings back echoes of giggles, of threats, of banter. Dark is perfectly capable of living on his own, but he  _ wants  _ the moronic, loud, stubborn-ass glitch. Damn him for taking this long. Damn him for meaning anything.

He wonders if Anti still tastes the same.

He nearly cannot reply through the crescendo of irrationality. “If you’re so secure and you don’t need me at all, you wouldn’t be here.”

Anti’s hand splays over his bare, blood-covered midsection, his other fingers tracing his rim. “If you had any shred of dignity left, you wouldn’t be here either.”

“Fu-uh-uh-” The rebuttal stammers off his lips at a sudden demanding jab. Anti mouths his ear, grazing his teeth over the lobe and tracing the shell with his tongue. The insolence ignites his rage, which had lain under the surface. Rage at Anti for taking so long, rage at Wil for lowering his inhibitions, rage at himself for permitting any of this. The long game ticked through its lagging machinations over the months, but he couldn’t remain patient forever. 

“The fuck do you want from me, glitch?”

“Just shut up.” 

Dark growls low in his throat, nails digging into the glitch’s chest. A warning grunt rears in retaliation, his clothes yanked down until the cold night air and brick force him to seek familiar body heat. Anti bites his lip and kisses him. All Dark can think is  _ his scent, his sound, it’s him, he’s here. _ But he still had to admit Dark’s importance to him. It’s been  _ months.  _ How long will it  _ take _ ? Anger boils in his blood, makes his motions harsh. Void below, he hates this fucking idiot for taking so damn long. 

The idiot moves in dirty, demanding motions, not taking particular care to give Dark anything to get off on. When he squirms to take more, teeth and tongue work punishing hickeys along his neck. He tries to buck him off for breathing room, and Anti closes a hand around his throat, squeezing in warning. Every time Dark pushes, Anti pushes harder.  _ Well, if he wants it, he better work for it. _ Dark keeps pushing, getting lightheaded and flushed. 

His prick hardens quickly, approaching an embarrassing record. Anti doesn't even say anything else, doesn't ask or shame. Probably since he has no leg to stand on when it comes to shame in this situation. They've always known the score. Everything about his body language screams  _ I don't need you.  _ If Dark hadn't been in his mind, he never would have known otherwise. No, Anti never needed him, they both knew that. Neither  _ needed  _ each other, not even when they told themselves that to excuse their behavior to themselves. That wasn’t what they’d fought about in the first place. 

Heat floods his systems, pulls at his outline when Anti wetly scissors him and then slides his digits out. It’s only been a minute, only been a couple, nothing like their usual. The demon grips his thighs hard enough to bruise, hitching him up. Dark shudders, feverish with the realization that this is happening. They’re no longer pretending to be nice. Anti is going to take what he wants. 

_ This is what I get,  _ he thinks, eyes shutting.  _ This is what I deserve for being an idiot.  _

Except that there’s a sudden stop. Except that Anti, pressed against him and trapping him against abrasive brick, pauses to look at him. Really  _ look.  _ As if he’s taking inventory.

“You were jealous,” Dark breathes, risking vulnerability. Anti’s eyes flicker, boring into his own, fixated on something there that Dark couldn’t identify. 

“You were needy,” comes a snarky retort, but it loses its sting falling from panting lips. Then that anger overshadows his features, the moment slipping away. “You were using someone  _ again. _ ”

Dark’s lip curls in a sneer. “It’s my fucking nature,  _ Antisepticeye. _ ”

“Your turn,” he says lowly, and before Dark can snap something back he’s pushing in, getting off on the sharp cry forced out of him. They’ve done this before. They’re no strangers to pain, but before they’d both made no secret of what they wanted. He scratches hard enough to rip Anti’s shirt, feeling split in half. Pain and pleasure mix in a messed-up jumble of nerve endings. It’s been too long since they’ve been together, since he last let Anti take him, and now Anti’s breaking past any pretense. It’s Dark’s turn to be  _ used,  _ and that knowledge of being used floods his face with humiliation and shatters his control. A high and stuttered cry breaks from his chest. Anti burrows in to the hilt and sucks in a breath, nosing along the line of Dark’s mottled neck, up under his jaw and exhales. 

“You’re so red,” he mumbles. Tendrils of warmth snake around Dark’s ribs like chains. A deep demeaning thrill shoots arousal through his veins. He doesn’t move, not wanting to give anything away, but  _ damn him  _ Anti shifts and even biting his bloody lip doesn't keep down a pleading noise. An exhaled laugh, so very different from his typical giggle, puffs air against the shell of his ear. “Oohhhh, isn't that ironic?”

He tries to breathe, drowning in feeling. So what if he’s a little turned on by this? He wanted him and now he’s here and he’s  _ jealous.  _ “Oh please-”

Teeth nip his ear and a quick thrust cuts him off again. “Don’t sass me.”

And now it’s Dark’s choice because he doesn’t need to listen. He doesn’t need to obey. There’s still power in his palms and he can’t possibly miss when they’re flat against the glitch’s body. 

But this is  _ Anti.  _ And enveloped in his scent, in his warmth, in his attention, Dark doesn’t want to stop. Somewhere in his muddled mind, he knows he’s doing this for good reason. Anti came back and initiated all this, so surely this can only work in Dark’s favor in the long run. Give him a taste of what he’s been missing. Or at the very least, give Dark another shot of his fix so he can stay patient another few months. Oh fuck, must he really wait that long?

Anti watches this play out, eyes catching the low amber light from the bulb above the door. Some hint or flicker in green and blue plucks a chord in Dark’s chest. His voice is a rasp when it breaks the silence. “Why are you here?” The question shocks them both, Dark not knowing why he said it so quietly. 

Anti’s movements slow, the abrupt reduction heightening a new awareness. It may have been their usual pattern to fight and fuck and make up, but this instance was preceded by both sides digging heels in and months of cold silence. They’d argued, yes, but this harsh intimacy was not unavoidable. Especially from Anti’s side; Dark’s the one more attuned to obsession and using touch as a tool. The glitch has whims but operates on determination or careful planning, not an emotional fixation. 

The muscles in his jaw twitched. His voice took static with it. “I don’t like other people touching my things.” 

Dark’s heart beats in his ears. A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead, his hair a damp mess, his legs aching from activity. Anti’s nose bumps into his, the glitch swallowing. His grip feels like a brand.  _ My things. My things. You were jealous. My things. _

“I don’t need you,” Dark whispers. Their eyes lock. 

“And we don't match.” 


	4. Magnetized

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anti's side.

Dark jealous and leaving a wet trail of biting kisses down his collar, Dark tossing a knowing look over his shoulder with bloody destruction around his feet, Dark draped across furniture scrolling through his phone and sassing him, Dark with his pretty legs hooked around his waist dropping his name from ravaged lips, Dark’s red tinting his eyes as they drift shut and his body settles sleepily on his chest-

He didn’t  _ need  _ Dark, not in the way the demon demanded. He just...craved him. Was addicted to lined eyes and the pleasure of breaking down his walls to levels unspoken of anywhere else. Anti was the only one who could cut through the bullshit and make Dark stutter. Could anyone really blame him for wanting that again? 

He shouldn’t have come when JJ messaged him. He shouldn’t have followed the demon to the alley and he definitely shouldn’t have fallen back into a hate fuck, no matter how irresistable a bloody, off-kilter void looked. It gave Dark far too much control for what Anti could retaliate with at the present. He calculates, he plans, he figures shit out. Suddenly seeing Dark again, and so  _ vital,  _ so completely  _ fine  _ on his own forgetting about Anti… 

No, he should never have acted on feelings over thoughts. It messes him up and clouds his judgement. He’s in the middle of it all, gaining control, igniting the masses. Damn it all, he had well-made plans to architect the upcoming destruction. Now was not the time to get back into it with Dark. 

And yet Dark was fine on his own, had just told Anti that he didn’t need him. Stupidly, Anti wanted to be needed. Stupidly, Anti didn’t want to lose this infuriating, manipulative bastard. 

When he finally tracked him down through the decades, he'd arrived just in time to watch him part with Wil. Dark's form was blurry, hardly substantial but enough to pass. Wil gave him a kiss on his forehead, and Anti witnessed the strangest phenomena he's seen: Dark visibly loosened up. He was leaning into movements too far, drunk and stupid and letting some mortal lead him away. Dark was out of his mind. He would never let his control slip so much sober. No way in hell was he going to let that happen. 

No one else gets to see that red gradually bleed into deep black-brown. No random human can wring out this side of Dark, the part that wanted to stop fighting, the part that wanted to be claimed and possessed. His pale skin covered in bruises, his lips bloody and swelling, pupils blown wide and grip so tight around him, fucking  _ everywhere  _ like he’s afraid of Anti disappearing. Anti took too long coming back to him. The fuck with pride. Honestly, what was Dark asking of him?

Exclusivity, for one. Cooperation to a degree. Acquiescing to all relevant titles and actions of...what, partnership? Tits and ass, parceling the whole thing sounded like a contract with the damned devil. Doing all that in exchange for having Dark. Or at least, as much of him as Dark gives him. This was dumb. The whole thing was dumb.  _ He’s  _ dumb for doing this anyway.

Dark’s smooth, scarred palm, still feverishly warm from the current of power under the skin, presses against the curve of his neck, thumb tracing the edge of his gash. Anti had reopened it a few nights after Halloween. Familiarizing with something Dark already knew. 

It yanks at a chord tying him to this demon. It pulls too much at his emotions. He withdraws, taking a deep inhale against Dark’s shoulder. His scent, fire and a mulling headiness, fills his lungs and fogs his mind. That’s what it’s always done to anyone close enough to smell it. That unworthy human had smelled it. Someone else had earlier, doubtful if Dark remembered who. Doubtful if they’re still alive. But they had, and Dark had let them.

_ His demon.  _

He gets it now, where Dark was coming from during their fight. He can’t sleep sometimes wondering who Dark’s newest obsession will turn out to be. And with Dark’s temper, he was bound to do something excessive and stupid like force Anti to choose spilling ridiculous confessions or kill him. Now Dark has his control taken, his emotions running with nowhere to go. 

The face he made when he pushed in told him everything Dark was thinking in that moment, confirming in each fluttering squeeze, every little gesture pulling him in. Anti didn’t need to read minds to see it; Dark missed him. He held himself at least somewhat accountable for their fallout, which was better than he usually does in fights. And he flushed and moaned with a tightened grip when Anti took what he wanted. 

As it should be. Anti is the only one who gets to use him. 

He smirks and shallowly jerks his hips, testing. A muffled pleading noise comes from him, Dark’s legs wrapping around him tightly. “You gonna tell me the truth?” Anti coos. 

“What fucking truth?” Dark demands through his teeth, his eyes squeezing shut. 

“You know  _ exactly  _ what I’m talking about.” 

“Why won’t you ever shut up-” His complaint morphs into a keening sound, punished by a callous thrust and then nothing. Despite all his previous claims that Anti had no self control, he could keep ahold of this. 

“Tell me,” he orders again. 

Dark’s charcoaled lids drag open, eyes finding Anti’s and taking away his breath. He’s never seen the red so prominent, catching the light and reflecting like fresh blood. Dark’s focus on his form was slipping enough to let him see it. His features literally  _ glow  _ red and blue like tinted lights are on him, the auras intangible and part of him, running through his veins. A shiver jolts Anti’s spine. This is a predator. This is something that will kill him without blinking, and it was temporarily under his control, but only pinned physically. It will be out of his control soon enough and be free to destroy him. Instead it had fixated on him. 

And fucking hell the danger was gorgeous.

“Only if you admit it.” Even drunk and high off murder and sex, even so obsessed after months of nothing, Dark can still talk back. 

“The fuck am  _ I _ supposed to admit?” 

“Cut the bullshit.” 

He starts moving again, cutting his words off into rasping inhales. Dark is starting to feel heavy, his legs losing purchase and Anti’s hands straining to hold him up alone. He keeps going anyway. “You  _ are  _ needy.”

“Admit-oh fuck, admit there’s no one else.”

“Admit you’re mad ‘cause you can’t control me.”

“Oh for the love of- _ shit,  _ Wil-”

Anti slows, hooking under Dark’s knees to readjust. A pang bolts through his chest. Dark shouldn't be calling anyone else's name. “No, Anti speaking.”

“Wil’s looking for me,” Dark says as if Anti’s stupid for thinking anything otherwise, casting his eyes towards the door with brows furrowed in irritation. “I’m not doing this here, not when he’s on his way.”

Had it been any other time, Anti would cheekily tease him about letting Wil join in. Had they not just established Anti’s jealousy, he would’ve stayed to make a point and show exactly who Dark belonged to. Yet nothing makes him madder than the thought of anyone else seeing this sexy, vulnerable side of his demon. 

“Seriously, I’m not in the mood for a shootout,” Dark presses, pushing at him. 

He can't transport like this, pulling out and breathing heavy. “God, I’m working on it, gimme a moment.” Anti thinks for a second on where to go, but it’s obvious. He calms his thoughts (the hardest fucking thing to do when he’s turned on and under threat of a lunatic) and transports them both. 

He doesn’t allow Dark the time to exhale a smirk at their surroundings before he crowds his space, released from the strain of holding him up. The room is just how he remembered; black covers, slightly cool, a strange contemporary style with a vintage twist. Mostly, the feel of soft blankets under his hands, tangling in his legs. He has more freedom of movement with Dark under him like this. 

They crash back together. Amidst the urgent touches and slurred profanities, he feels what he feared he would: like he just came home. Nothing gives Dark more power over him than that. He’s got a grip on his heart and somehow he still feels safe like that. It’s bullshit. No one else in the world can hurt him as badly now. Yet for all his calculations, all his planning and strategy, he can’t quite override his irrationality. His only chance is to fuck Dark up just as badly, play on his obsession, and make sure that any downward spirals end up with him on top. 

His demon is tipsy and desperate, as off-guard as he’s ever going to catch him. Blue hues flicker in his peripheral as he pins him down again (his auras are really flickering around indecisively). Getting him closer to subspace can’t hurt. Other than one stress-relieving outing in September, he hasn’t nailed Dark since that first time in August. It takes him a few seconds to rediscover what drives him crazy.

"Never say someone else's name like that again," he growls, snapping into him to make a point. It takes his demon longer than usual to come up with a retort. 

"That's rich, coming from you." 

" _ You  _ agreed to it, not me. You belong to  _ me _ ." Anti sinks his teeth into his neck, digs his nails in, and picks up his speed. Dark replies in kind, the way he matched him blow for blow in their first fight. If he had any patience, he’d draw it out once more, but he doesn't. It’s been months since their fight, too damn long trying to replace him and move on without success. He's not letting go this time. "No one else, remember?" 

"Then don't fucking leave me." 

He takes one look at russet eyes blown red by bad decisions and swears as he reaches his climax. A few thrusts later, his equal matches him. 

The aftermath doesn’t lose any of its luster. He stays nestled against him, an idle fantasy of Dark as his cockwarmer threatening new interest. How far can he go tonight before he's pushed away? The other demon seems too far gone to care. Anti licks into his mouth before asking a question against his skin. “Would he really have shot me?”

The answer is held back by a bitten lip. Anti coaxes it out of him with his tongue. “Without hesitation,” Dark says, not looking at him. “And then me.”

“And then you?” He’s distracted by how delicious Dark’s curls are messed up, running his fingers through them. 

There’s a moment of apprehension before a reply. “I’m too close to the monster that took his loved ones.”

Anti pulls away at that, evaluating the validity. Lined red eyes, humming auras, a voice that could shame a nun to sin. There is a shaded aspect to his features, something not quite right and a bit demure. Dark played a chess game with himself, and the human pawns corrupted and twisted their facades until they crashed together and made him this. But there was also the same basic shape of a dark haired man, a face certainly too young to have seen everything he has but too old to wear naivety honestly. 

He’s in love with that form. Not just the form, if he’s honest, but the entity within the shape. 

Anti looks at his eyes. “You  _ are  _ that demon. Don't try to hide it. I see you here,” he presses a kiss to his wrist, the veins vibrant as his skin loses saturation. “Here,” to his overheated palm that doesn’t have anywhere to dispel destructive energy. “And here,” to the corners of his liner, the frivolous thing Dark does simply because he can. “And here,” he says quieter, feathering his lips over his eyelids. He stares at the red, trying to file it away for future recollection. 

They both got quiet and slowed during that exchange, Anti suddenly catching himself but unsure how to maneuver around it. Dark takes a deep breath and sighs. He slides his wrist in Anti’s loose hold, bumping their hands. “No, Anti, I never could control you.”

It’s what he wanted to hear from the start. He loosens his hold to intertwine their fingers, settling their hands next to Dark’s shoulder. “And no, there was never anyone like you.” 


	5. Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relationships aren't built on dubious.

Dark is drowning. 

The lids of his eyes still tingle with ghostly pressure. No one had ever kissed him there. Temple? Sure, many times (thanks Wil), more if he indulged in his auras’ memories. Mouth? Of course. Never his eyes. Never the most inescapably demonic part of him, never the visible difference between him and the body he inhabits. The soft liner pen was never as warm as Anti’s lips were. The action flicked some switch inside of him he didn’t know he had. 

He’s straddling the glitch, kissing him like they hadn’t done enough of it before. His eyes slip shut, focusing on the sensations and the small sounds filling his ears. Whispers. Breaths. Rustling of sheets and wet noises. An arm encircles the bow of his back. A hand runs through his hair. He rocks himself forward, rubbing against Anti’s hardening member. The motion drags, a quiet squelching coming from the slick running down his thighs. 

( _ “You have to keep control,” she says. “We’re going to lose control.” _ )

Anti’s arm slings down towards his waist, fingers tracing one of his scars. He’d found them all their first time. He wasn’t repulsed by the evidence of the monster within. 

( _ “We’ll be fine,” he says. “We can let go.” _ )

Mental images hasten his heartbeat. The bite mark on his neck he won’t be able to hide. The answering scratches on Anti’s back. Anti’s eyes as they watched him fall apart. How the muscles jumped in his stomach as he thrust into him, the hard grip on Dark’s wrist sure to leave bruises, and the satisfaction on his face when he fucked him full. 

He felt so full, but not sated. He needs more. Dark pushes Anti back against the headboard, slinking down to mouth his cock. His glitch sucks in a surprised breath, swearing lowly. If he's good, he won't leave him. If he's everything he wants, if he uses his jealousy and turns it into possessiveness, then he will be able to keep him.  _ Look at me, stay with me, I'm so much better than someone else.  _ He doesn't want him to leave again. 

They match. 

He lathes attention on him with his tongue, sucking and licking to get him hard. He takes as much as he can, letting Anti move and handle him to get there quicker even as he struggles to breathe. Anti shifts impatiently, tightening his grip. Something he’s doing isn’t enough. Dark presses harder, picks up his pace, finds his hand and squeezes it. Whatever he needs, he can provide. 

( _ “We’ll always be enough,” he says. _ )

Yes, yes he will. 

A tremor passes through him as he shoves away the building pressure. He'd rather have Anti draw his pleasure out, cutting into his core and yanking it out in that brutally efficient way of his. Dark pulls off his cock after a warning noise. Everything seems a mile away and far too close at the same time. It hurts to be too far. He crawls back up to kiss him, losing himself in a haze. He wants to ride him until the sun comes out, he wants to be crushed to the mattress and claimed, plugged and used like the compliant mate he's acting like, fucked against a wall until he can't remember his goddamn name-

“Come on, sweetheart,” Anti coos, nibbling Dark’s ear. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Dark breaks away enough to press purred words into his jaw, smirking. “Don’t think for a second I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“What?”

“You’re taking advantage of me while you can, hoping I won’t remember everything later so I can’t hold it against you.”

“Oh please. You’re the one teasing me with all those thoughts and shit.”

Something isn't right about that. In fact, something is very wrong. Dark stills. “What are you talking about?”

Anti gathers him closer on his lap, raising a brow. “You tried reading my mind once, Dark. I remember what it felt like. You’re projecting everything you’re thinking.” Dark blinks hard, shaking his head. Mistake, his balance swirls around him like the rubber band teleporting from earlier. Anti's expression turns analytical. Concerned.

“I absolutely do not project.”

“Uh, yeah you do.” 

He tries to reel himself back in but can’t find the slip. Had he truly projected as Wil does? Had enough madness been shared throughout the night that he accidentally shared something with the glitch?

“Dark.” 

The rubber band snaps. He should be out of his mind with worry at the thought of losing his grip, slipping into madness just like everyone else did, losing what makes him individual in favor of becoming a passive observer concerned only with the here and now-

“Dark, talk to me.”

-and he had  _ embraced  _ it,  _ invited  _ it even, knowing full well that letting Wil dictate an evening meant losing some coherency, but now he’s in bed with the demon that very well could kill him, letting himself be subject to the flow of the present without even thinking about the future because he let himself get fucking drunk and mental, Wil pushing him way past the boundaries he'd set until he abandoned rationality completely, playing fast and loose like he didn’t spend all eternity just trying to make it this far-

“Look at me, love!” Sharp claws jerk his chin towards Anti, his bright, cutting gaze frantic. “Breathe.”

He’s almost hyperventilating. When did that start? He hasn’t been shitfaced in a long time, centuries, a different form. This one never took too well to an abundance of alcohol. This one also felt panic to the point of physical pain when control was lost. That was the pain he's been feeling, not the pain of separation. He had lost control somewhere along the way and slipped into madness, pushed to a space where his rationality died. It was his hyperfixation, his one goal. When making any decision, it came down to control, and in the meantime between decisions he was planning for those decisions. Oh fuck, how many people had he slept with tonight? 

Oh fuck. How long has he been out? 

He grips the offending wrist, feeling fuzzy around the edges. Side-along teleportation while drunk, slightly high, and in the middle of sex was one of the worst decisions he made thus far. His brain throbs like it did after his auras split, his balance off-kilter in the same way it was after Anti beat the shit out of him. No small wonder a thought or two slipped from him. Of course they weren’t just one or two harmless thoughts either, they showed Anti exactly what he’d wanted all along, betraying how much Dark missed him, how emotional he’d let himself become, how little control remained-

His feet launched him into the bathroom, having to stumble to avoid falling. The light is off. Good. The door slams behind him. Shower. He needs to fucking shower or something, get his bearings and clean as much of the night off as possible. The water turns on. He tries to get in and knocks something off a shelf, getting caught by the corner of the curtain. Too dizzy to find the water, he finds the floor, then a corner to curl up in that will hopefully set some of the universe straight. 

Eternities pass in the corner. The water doesn’t even get warmed up before it’s shut off. He can still hear running water, though. Occasionally, a quick buzz of teleportation rings in his ears. 

“Come on,” Anti’s voice says. Someone brushes his hair out of his face. The touch leads him to the tub. Other than the warm water and smooth porcelain, he shuts off his senses to try steadying them one by one. 

Touch is the first, the most grounding. Water. Attentive hands rubbing circles into his right palm, his left hand pressing over his eyes to alleviate the headache. Taste is pretty null, only leftover tangs of blood and tequila still lingering. Smell, the pleasant aroma of the bath and the metallic scent of his (boyfriend? Ex? Partner?) Anti overruling anything else. Hearing was the second most disorienting. It takes a few minutes to get rid of the anxiety rushing his ears and let the quiet hum of Anti’s pixels take over like white noise, small sounds of water drops peppering the near silence. Sight is the worst. 

His auras are almost fully shaped, Anti massaging his hand but the shadow of it split in two directions, shaded two different colors and refracting like stained glass. They don’t like the water. Dark himself likes the reassuring weightlessness of it. Occupying a physical presence is exhausting and heavy. 

Anti is flickering, his edges frayed. It’s hard to track his glowing form.  _ My glow stick that never fades. _ Dark has to shut his eyes again to let them adjust. He’s backlit only by the bedroom light spilling from the reopened door, respecting his unspoken wish to keep the bathroom light off. Was it unspoken? Or did he unintentionally project that too?

“Why are you here?”

Anti smirks to himself, the smile not reaching his eyes. “You can’t get rid of me.”

If it wouldn’t cause the world to spin, he would roll his eyes. “Anti.”

The glitch shrugs. “Jameson texted me he saw you, so I came to yell at you about Australia.”

“I meant  _ here.  _ On my floor.” 

“Because you needed help, you proud bastard. What was that? You were fine and then you freaked the fuck out.”

He groans his reply. “ _ You  _ try getting drunk in five random decades with a gun-toting lunatic.” 

"Alright. Sounds like a good Friday night, actually."

"Fuck your Irish host." 

"I don't find him that attractive." 

"Shut up." 

Anti smiles, and they lapse back into the semi-silence. The care is nice. Finally, Dark got Anti to confess, despite needing to do the same himself. Finally, they got over themselves. He resists the urge to ask if Anti will really be loyal this time around. Insecurity won’t be assuaged by the answer. If Dark thinks he can’t trust Anti, Anti’s words won’t change a thing. He has to trust his actions. It’ll take a while. After all, he’d acted flawlessly last time and still cheated on him (but come on, they didn’t actually have boundaries before, and although he wants to blame Anti for breaking the rules, he’s done the same fucking thing to people). 

Besides, he knows the glitch. He got off on a technicality before. 

“It’s always been myself against the world.”

Anti smiles wider. “The world  _ definitely  _ doesn’t stand a chance now.”

"Us against the world, hm?"

"Us against the world."


	6. That's the Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's finally address the villain in the WKM lore, shall we?

Dark glances up when Anti shuffles into the kitchen, the bastard actually smirking to himself behind his coffee. "It lives." 

"Shut up, this is like, the only time I've slept late!" he complains, grabbing for the cup. The other demon simply leans away, holding it out of reach. 

"Get your own!"

Anti growls, pressing against him to reach for the glorious bean juice. "It's too late, Dark, you've already contracted all my cooties." 

"Are you aware you're an actual five-year old in the morning?" 

He stops persisting after the coffee, evaluating the demon close enough to kiss. Despite this being the fourth month of tolerating each other, arguing and screwing around and daily banter, he's still not used to seeing Dark in only a button-up and slacks, fresh out of the shower before he puts on the tough guy facade and stops putting up with Anti's annoying tendencies. Deep down he knows they're both unstable as fuck. They hold grudges for centuries. He wonders if they'll ever fully forgive each other for their fight. 

He takes the offensive, grabbing him by the collar and nearly bending him back over the counter. An eager, nose-nudging type of kiss. A warm hand flies to his shoulder. It makes its way up to his hair, a pleased sound emitting from his (partner? Boyfriend? Fuck this shit) Dark. Anti sneaks a try at the coffee again. 

It's carried just out of his range. Dark breaks off their kiss, low amusement in his voice. "I said, get your own." 

Anti wants to be petty and roll his eyes. His Whatever can be a smug dick. Then Dark's gaze flicks to the right, where another perfectly made, undisturbed mug sits with pure black bean water steaming within. None of that sugar shit Dark always has. 

_ God, I love you.  _

The smile hasn't been on Anti's face for a whole minute before it twists into indignance. "You fucking planned that, didn't you?" 

Dark arches a brow. "I have no idea what you're talking about." 

The air temperature drops ten degrees. Both demons snap upright, looking at each other. No, neither one is responsible. Anti lets go, pushing Dark behind him and scanning the area for the cause. Dark puts his coffee down, click. Frost coats the windows and creeps under the front door. Something in the Upside Down stumbled across the house. If it was smart, it’d recognize the power within and creep away as quickly as it’d come. He takes a deep breath. Frigid air cuts into his lungs, his exhale akin to a long drag of cigarette smoke. A flicker of purple tints the metal handles on the kitchen cabinets. The thing isn’t leaving. 

“Who else is on our hitlist?”

“No one,” Dark answers. His warm weight jolts away, his breaths quiet but quick. Anxious. Anti still searches the house for any signs of assault, sparing a glance at his partner. Dark’s fierce eyes are stuck on the window above the sink. No, not the window. The reflection. 

An omnipresent laugh echoes as if from rafters, bouncing around the eight foot ceilings. Anti’s anger rises. This was their safe space. This is where Anti’s giggles meant amusement instead of impending doom, where he had first gotten that carefree laughter from the uptight control freak behind him. How dare someone parody that here. 

“Where-” he starts, hand going to his hilt. 

Before he can finish, a hand snatches his wrist and yanks him around, landing him behind Dark. A loud snarl snaps in his ears. The chill sets into his bones and catches in his throat. He’s only seen Dark this feral once, in an alley when corrupted by madness. Wil is nowhere in sight. That doesn’t explain the lashing auras, the defensive stance between Anti and the door, or the growl ripping from his chest that shatters every glass item in a five-foot vicinity. 

“I told you you’d make a fantastic villain!” the new voice rings from the door now, Mark’s but...higher. More clipped and condescending. The man himself flings the door open in a grand gesture, welcoming an audience only the deluded can see. Something is off about this. 

Well, no shit. Dark’s hidden den discovered by a frosty lookalike? But there’s more to that, because it isn’t Mark. It looks...it looks like Dark. Specifically, it looks like one of his auras. The blue one. Damien? Condescension and charm ooze off the newcomer in the same way it would from a fast-talking car salesman three thousand deep in debt with only Corollas in the lot and a living to wrench from his hapless customers. Whoever - whatever - it was, it wasn’t Damien’s reserved judgement or Dark’s control. Anti racks his memories of the skits he’s seen. There were a shit ton of lookalikes in WKM, or maybe this is a side he’s never met, maybe it’s a new side that Dark sequestered. They were apart for months. Anything is possible. 

It takes one step in the room and Dark hurls a blow, red slashing through the space and contorting the lighting. Anti ducks on instinct, not expecting Dark to fire right away without any words or indication. It only manages to dodge the majority of the hit, laughing again at the slice on its arm. It holds its hands up. “Okay, okay, you’re mad, I get it.”

“How many times do I have to kill you?” Despite being caught in a very domestic setting, wearing his casuals, Dark still commands total fear. Anti draws his knives. Anyone who can get him riled up that hard that quick deserves apprehension. 

“Our series is not yet over, my friend.” Anti recognizes the gleam of madness in its brown eyes, though it carries none of the levity found in Wilford. “I applaud your performance in our last scene. I think you actually believed you had killed me, and the way you finished it, oh, it was delectable. First Celine, and then you. But I have to wonder how you could truly believe that was the end.”

Dark hesitates, silence overtaking the room. He hadn’t believed that. Anti blinks. The nightmares, the wards, the refusal to bring anyone home until Anti came along. They were all because Dark knew he wasn’t safe. 

No one gets to threaten his demon. “Who the fuck are you again?” The lookalike forces itself to acknowledge Anti’s outburst, looking him over. 

“Is this what you found to fill your time, Damien? Tsk, at least you branched out from your predictable trysts. You used to be so naive. Aren’t you glad I stayed away long enough for you to gain some depth? Everyone loves a complex character. Every peak will be higher, every fall more devastating!”

“Well, fuck you too, buddy!” Anti stays locked on target, wondering what Dark’s face looks like. He’s gotten into his lethal quiet during the monologue, surely analyzing his next three steps. Why is this guy calling him by his aura’s name? 

"Take it from me, friend," the new demon dismisses, shooting a pitying look his way, "If he's anything like his sister, the sex isn't worth dying for." 

Dark finally speaks, hands clenching into fists. “Why did you come here?” 

It smiles. “You hid again. Celine must’ve been more careful this time, but she still failed. I wanted to see her face when she realized she lost. I wanted to see yours as you realized I will always come back.” It steps forward, ice and silhouettes cast in a distorted shadow behind it. “I know that you and Wil found yourselves a host whose ability to revive you kept you both alive. I know you’ve made friends, you take care of your new Mark, you might even have fallen in love. However, as much as I’d like you around,” he grips a small cane and throws a sickly plastic face of remorse, “You’ve kept your sister alive as well. And you shoved a knife in my heart too, Damien. How did it feel to kill yourself?”

“You’re the expert on that, aren’t you, Mark?”

‘Mark’ juts a finger at Dark. “God, you’re good! Such a shame to kill you, but you’ve completed your arc. All you have left now is to die. The hero always prevails in the end.”

“You’re no hero.”

“And you’re nothing.” The shadows deepen, the frosty air piercing through Anti’s sweatshirt. “You’re not even ‘Dark’ anymore.”

Before Anti can register the sentence, Dark’s form glitches, the older demon splitting quickly into three and reforming again. His voice rasps when he speaks. “Don’t.”

A presence brushes against Anti’s mind. Recoiling, the knife flashes forward. A warm hand squeezes his own. Dark. It’s Dark asking permission. Fuck! Is this seriously the only way they can strategize without this Mark character overhearing? Fine. Anti pulls back his defenses, primed and ready for an assault that never comes.  **_Trust me,_ ** Dark says, and nothing more. Cryptic as fucking ever, then. Glad to know the bastard’s consistent. 

“Don’t?” Mark steps forward, pinning the void in place with an intense gaze. “You mean,  _ don’t  _ tell your friend here that you’re nothing more than a last-ditch effort made by pathetic, entitled brats?  _ Don’t  _ say the truth, that every time you try to run and hide, you fail?” 

Anti glances at Dark, unable to feel his mental presence anymore, unable to predict where he’s going with this. Each question Mark asks skews his form, the auras more pronounced, Dark reeling on his feet. Mark makes a grabbing motion, yanking Dark across the room until they’re just out of arm’s reach of each other. 

Every cell screams to transport. Save him. Do something! 

No, Dark told him to trust him. He has to trust him. 

“I bet you didn’t even tell him the truth about us,” Mark continues, never glancing at Anti, eyes gleaming. “I bet you never told him that you truly are nothing.”

“Fuck you-”

Mark lurches forward and strikes him with the cane, cutting off his retort in a cry. None of this is right. Dark took down those demons in August. He won the respect of the fucking ocean spirits. How is this one person bringing him so low? 

“Do you know who this is?”

It takes Anti a moment to realize Mark is asking him the question. The full force of his attention makes him dizzy, this new demon’s strength lashing behind him as a silhouette might in a hurricane. He spits back, “That’s Dark, you arrogant prick.”

The thing just tsks at him like a bloody child. “No, no, I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong. This is simply-” he motions with his hand and tosses Dark against the wall, Dark’s body slamming into the barrier with a spine-snapping crack. During the glint of power and blurred motion, Dark had disappeared. Where he ought to be crumpled on the floor lie two figures. Anti doesn’t need them to look up to know they’re Damien and Celine. “-simply two ungrateful whores whose very existence centers around pissing me off.” 

Trust Dark. He has to trust Dark. 

Mark scoffs, surveying the twins. “They are the human's empathy.  _ I’m  _ Darkiplier.”

More of a twist than he signed up for. 

He forces himself to focus, reigning in his pixels. Why would Dark let Mark monologue and toss him around? Why would he let Mark split him up into the twins?

Damien is the first to recover, scrambling between Mark and his sister. “Don’t do this, please, Mark-”

“A bit harder to kill me without the element of surprise,” Mark smirks, striding ever towards Damien and Celine’s prone form. 

_ They are echoes, Anti. They aren’t significant. They aren’t real.  _

They look pretty blooming real to Anti. Although cast in their respective colors, the twins are bruised, Damien bleeding from the impact with the wall. His wide eyes catch the low, lashing light when they flash towards him in a desperate plea for assistance. They’re so much like Dark’s eyes. No, they  _ are  _ Dark's eyes. And they need him. Maybe Dark didn’t have everything figured out. Maybe this is the time his strategy failed. 

Anti transports between Damien and Mark, holding the actor at knifepoint. “Come a step closer and I’ll cut your fucking balls off.” 

“My fight isn’t with you, glitch.” 

“It is now.”

“Do you really want to die defending these pathetic little liars? You can align with me, the  _ real  _ power-”

“D’ya ever stop talking?”

Mark’s face scrunches up in anger, frostbite threatening to tear into Anti’s skin. “I WAITED TOO DAMN LONG FOR THIS!” He lunges at Anti, trying to toss him aside. Anti transports with the momentum, slamming into his face. It backs the actor up a few steps, enough to breathe. Over his shoulder, a bloodied figure slinks from the pitch black bedroom, one of Anti’s blades glinting in their grip. Shit, that’s right. On the battlefield in August, Dark hadn’t split into two. He’d split into three. 

Mark rakes his hair back, raising his cane. Metal clashes against metal. He moves faster than Anti thought possible. In only a few minutes, they’re both sweating from exertion and growling, words lost along the way. He keeps his eyes on Mark, the figure creeping closer and closer behind the actor, the attorney raising their bloody hands to drive the blade home. Mark whirls around to knock the blade away-

A shot explodes through the small room. Abruptly, the lights return to normal, Dark’s figure regaining his auras as the twins vanish. Between the two demons, Mark stares down at the bullet wound pouring blood from his chest. All three calculate the trajectory at the same time, looking towards the door. 

Wil cocks his Magnum. In his eyes, all the clarity of the world, and all the rage it tries to repress. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” he says. He watches, face set like stone, breaths measured as a hunter’s on a tour, as Mark dissolves into nothing. 

Dark is the first to move. He sets the knife down on the floor, treading towards Wilford as one might approach a toddler holding a grenade. "Thank you, Wil. He's gone." 

"He'll be back, Damien.”

Dark no longer reacts to the name, brushing their fingers together and easing the gun down. “I’m sure he will be.”

“You can’t trust him, remember that. He broke all our hearts. I know you want to fight for him, but you can’t. That sort is beyond reasoning. He’s not our friend anymore.”

“I know.”

“Don’t patronize me, I was in a war! And I came home to another one within our own family. Mark killed people I loved!” 

“Wil-”

“He killed...you…”

Wilford’s eyes have since lost their clarity, refocusing on the entity in front of him. Whether due to the recent split or preservation, Dark has regained some color, looking more like his human than himself. He unloads the gun with gentle, decisive motions, letting Wil tug it back and holster it. They stare at each other. Wilford’s hand starts to reach up, then curls on itself and drops back to his side. Dark doesn’t comment on it. Anti can’t figure out whether the fragile composure is genuine or staged to resemble Wil’s best friend. 

“Sorry, old boy, I thought you were someone else,” Wil says, patting Dark’s shoulder. “Damien’s out being responsible somewhere!  _ Someone _ has to be, am I right? Of course you’d know, you’ve got all that  _ legal  _ stuff to get through, I don’t know how you do it. But hey, we all make our way in the world!”

“Life is ours to choose.”

“Bully! But have a bit of  _ fun _ once in a while, you’re so serious! We can go out for jazz sometime, you’d love it.”

“Soon, Wil.”

“I’ll hold you to that, you  _ rascal.  _ And your friend is welcome too! It’ll be a whole party!”

“We look forward to it.”

“I gotta tell the others, get them jazzed for jazz, if ya know what I mean. But we’ll get together soon, alright? Stay out of trouble, now!” Wil bounces forwards, kissing Dark’s nose before zipping out the door. Dark quietly shuts it behind him. 

For a moment, they breathe and let those sighs take over the room. Cracks in the wall seal themselves, the frost melts into the floorboards, color fades and auras settle. Thoughts race through Anti’s head. So, there’s an ego, Actor Mark. He’s determined to make Dark the villain of some self-made story. He considers Dark as nothing more than the sum of his auras, and himself as an all-powerful entity that can be discorporated like any other mortal. And he had called Dark...Empathy. 

He can’t even begin processing Wilford’s boomerang sanity and the strange friendship between the two. That’s a problem only if he makes it one. 

“Are you really your human’s empathy?”

Dark tilts his head, not turning around. “In a sense.”

Anti sheathes his blade, stepping forward. “The Senator. The girl. Her mother. You never raised a hand against anyone but me or the Actor. You just...use empathy.” No reply. His voice gets a strange tone to it. “Is he really Dar-”

“No, he isn’t!” Dark snaps. Then he takes another long breath, rolling his shoulders back. “He is ‘Darkiplier’ only in the sense that he embodies Mark’s most hated qualities; arrogance, selfishness, narcissism, malice. I may be his emotional intelligence, but I use it in ways my human would never perform himself. Vengeance, wrath, manipulation. I withhold  _ empathy _ as much as I perform it.”

“So you are an ego.”

Dark finally faces him, red glinting in his irises. “Every time you try to categorize me, you will be wrong.”

“You said the auras weren’t real.”

“Antisepticeye, tell me that you are only a figment of Jack’s imagination, and nothing more. Say you are a child’s nightmare. Define yourself by your mortal’s terms. Does it contain you?” 

The answer is no. He was in coding for a long time. A hybrid. He always assumed Dark was outside of human influence, but he’s shaped by the stories they tell just as much as Anti is. He and Dark are not so different. The stubborn demon just equated them (if he’d swallowed his pride and done that when their fight began months ago, they could’ve avoided a lot more bullshit). They’re equal.

Something clicks into place. 

It speaks to their familiarity that Dark does not flinch when Anti sweeps him into another aching kiss. Unsure touches poke his embrace, then settle into it. His demon is unharmed, whole and transparent. No questionable auras split him into facets, no glitches require unison. A material weight lends significance to them as it rarely ever does; perhaps the last time they were this tangibly physical was when Dark had to be, weakened towards corporeality after his fight against the storm and vulnerable in Anti’s jacket. That same profoundly visceral sense of touching and being touched punctures the surreal confrontation that occurred minutes ago, though prevailing as more true than the confrontation since the scars are already healed from the Actor. Well, most of them. There are scars that are too fresh to be scars in their minds. Dark has brushed against Anti’s mind twice before, once on accident. The glitch despised being violated in the only recess he had. It’s the only place he could retreat from everyone. Now, he wants nothing more than to have Dark see right through to his marrow. 

He can’t quite bring himself to admit to the ache, instead nuzzling his partner’s ear to murmur something. Volume eludes him, reducing the singular word to a whisper. 

It is enough. 

Dark draws back at the utterance of his name.  _ His  _ name. 

“Anti-” It’s the first time he’s seen Dark unable to finish a thought. 

“I love you.” He cups his cheek and smiles. “I know you, and I love you.”

The other doesn’t seem to know what to say at first, mouth open and eyes squinting but not leaving Anti’s hold. He watches Anti with the weight of his existence and the simple weightlessness of being understood without explanation, both the ego and the demon. He knows Dark doesn’t know Anti’s infernal name. Not enough has been shaped about him to give him one as strongly tied to his core as Dark’s. But Sean can figure that all out later, at his own pace. It’s no disadvantage if Anti can use Dark’s far before Dark can reciprocate. The same is true about declaring love. It’s the first time since they’ve met that either one has mentioned the word ‘love’ and ‘you’ in the same sentence. 

Dark exhales, glancing down. “Us against the world.” Steady hands gather them closer once more, and he meets Anti halfway in a kiss part admittance of defeat and part invitation to know him deeper than before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on a nice little epilogue, but since it's a new thing, it isn't done yet, and I don't have a deadline for it other than relatively soon hopefully. It's the first time I've posted a story without all its chapters ready to go, so sorry, and bear with me, and I hope you at least had some fun along the way!


	7. Loose Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their "normal" isn't always smooth, and almost always changing, but they'll deal with it. Because they're assholes, but they're assholes together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The loose bits of the ending that I'm finally okay posting. Tis finished, friends! Little rushed, but 2020, okay? Also called loose ends because this is a really loose ending, ugh. There's only so much canon I can keep track of.

Two damned creatures walk side by side. Many more lay strewn in the path they carved with blades and blame, blood soaking and settling into the soil. They had been raging storms, monsters of lust and shame, charlatans whose masks hid grotesque and twisted shells of broken souls bleeding over razors made from their own arrogance. Whirlwinds, bowed under the weight of the sins they carried and the pride they bore, stilled forever by two damned creatures. 

__

“I like you in white,” Anti drops, dodging a particularly nasty swing of a heavy chain. 

“I never asked for your opinion,” comes the reply between two swinging axes. 

“Will you two take it easy?” Illinois calls from ahead. “One more time, a leisurely pace is all it takes.” 

Anti repeats the line in a mocking tone, quiet enough that Illinois doesn’t turn around.  _ The Heist _ had brought more egos into their mix, and with Sean revisiting his own egos in small but intense doses, both demons thought it’d be prudent to check on the situation. Every project Mark undertook threatened to bring the Actor back in full bloom. Luckily, Illinois seemed to be just that: Illinois. He’s a separate being, like Bim or Ed. No need to kill him. Yet. 

Yancey was the same way, some semi-tough badly accented boy with a penchant for charismatic singing. While this casual adventurer hadn’t met the Actor, Yancey had, and there had been a human-sized hole in the wall to prove it. He didn’t take too kindly to “the saccharine condescension doled out by the son of a bitch,” nodded at one of the bigger guys, and whistled a jaunty tune as he stepped over the body to get lunch. When Dark had shown up, Yancey felt vindicated. “Oh, so  _ you’re  _ the guy everyone’s been talkin’ about. Don’t know what brings ya to my humble jail, but that asshole you’re huntin’ is long gone by now.”

“Didn’t you escape?” Anti asked. 

“Yeah, well, I like it better in here. So what d’you want?”

They had taken a vague interest in Yancey’s tattoo, following each path to Wilford, Dark’s own ending, and eventually, Illinois. Which brings them to now, following the Indiana Jones wannabe through a cave because they’d wandered into the man’s trap-filled domain. Much like Dark has his home apart from Mark, the others have created spaces for themselves. The one space Dark refuses to visit is Wilford’s. After seeing how unhinged the guy was, and how vulnerable he could make others, Anti couldn’t help but agree. Besides, there was no need to check on Wil after he shot the Actor. He might be insane, but he still knows the bastard responsible. These new egos, however, were uncharted territory. There was little Dark hated more than uncharted territory. 

“How many more?” Anti complains, an arrow skimming his pixels. 

“According to the map, just the goddamned pirate,” Dark growls. 

Illinois catches the tail end, glancing between the two demons with a lopsided smirk. “So you started with the  _ sexier _ new egos. The old pirate’s only able to jump so damn high because he’s compensating for his daddy issues. I don’t blame you for exploring my caves first.” He winks at Anti. Either he’s going insane, or Illinois somehow possesses the ability to wink with a whip crack. Feeling more than a little spiteful, he gives the adventurer a once-over and winks back. 

The cave had been cool to begin with, but with the auras irritated, it was downright chilly. Anti continues following Illinois with a shit-eating grin on his face. Dark made him trudge through a fucking jungle to get here, and a prison before that. All the Septics entailed was a quick look in their general direction (and oh look, Chase is depressed, wow, Henrik is a little crazy, who knew). Dark’s patience is a thin line to push, but if he keeps the light banter up, maybe he’ll get a more interesting night than the past couple visits where he sits on his phone while Dark does whatever it is that always keeps him busy at his desk. He deserves a little fun for tracking down the Ipliers all day.

\---

The stone cold silent treatment doesn’t end when they decide to check the pirate ego tomorrow, heading back to Dark’s for the night. Nor does it end when they walk through the door. Anti tugs at Dark’s waist, which he strides away from. He reaches for Dark’s arm, and he jerks it out of his range. Anti pursues him to their room, rolling his eyes. 

“Don’t be such a bitch, everyone on your side is a flirt, it doesn’t mean anything!”

This gets Dark to turn his head. “Just because they’re flirts doesn’t mean  _ you  _ have to be.”

Dare he hope? Anti goes to hold him again, trapping him with the bed, the end table, and his body. He almost always caves with enough touch. “You jealous?” His hands are knocked away. He savors the next words, “You’re  _ jealous _ .”

“I am not jealous just because you spent the entire afternoon eye-fucking some idiot.”

Anti laughs, goes to pull Dark’s suit jacket. “You didn’t like me  _ exploring  _ Illinois’ caves?”

Dark transports behind him, something he’s started to do more and more as a point of pride. That power used to be tied exclusively with extreme emotion, but he probably just wanted to keep up with Anti. Anti’s hands are wrenched behind him. After a beat, he feels soft satin digging into his wrists. “ _ Stop  _ trying to touch me,” Dark mutters. 

“Babe,” Anti says, and although it doesn’t interrupt the satin situation, it meets no rebuttal. They both know if he wanted to, he’d transport out and touch him anyways. “You sound frustrated, maybe I could help out.” 

He’s pulled backwards onto the corner of the comforter. A definitive creak of wood marks the finished satin knot around the bedpost. “Just like that, hm? Like you're not the one who started it?”

“Well, if it’s already started…”

Dark crosses to the other side of the bed, venturing into the closet. The white jacket gets hung carefully back with the other jackets. He doesn’t look at Anti, pointedly ignoring him and taking his sweet time unbuttoning his beautiful black shirt. He starts at the collar. The first two buttons part to frame the dip of his collarbone, elegant lines hiding under textured fabric. The third button dips between his pecs. Anti has to remind himself to blink. 

Dark’s fingers drift from the buttons down towards his belt, easing the leather through the metal buckle. It makes a small rustle as it's drawn from its loops. A clank punctures the quiet when the buckle hits the floor. 

Anti bites his lip. “How long are you gonna mess around?” If Dark looked over, like he wanted, he would’ve seen Anti’s gaze drinking in his movements, every curve and edge of him. But he still maintains the unaffected distance, rolling his eyes. Then he leaves the room altogether. Anti’s left with just the belt on the floor, his hands tied to the post, and bothered. Not much of a strip tease. Fuck, he talked too much. 

With no sign of him returning anytime soon, Anti settles back against the post and shuts his eyes. They haven’t fucked in a while, much to his dismay, so he has to think for a minute to pull up memories of Dark without all those clothes. Last time, they were grinding on the couch. Anti had teased him with some bullshit, who cares, and Dark finally pulled him on his lap determined to do something about it. 

Anti’s legs fold and unfold with restless energy. From where he’s tied, he can’t get really good pressure on his dick. Maybe if he shifted around, he’d get the side of the bed, but that’s kind of pathetic. 

“Are you going to get over yourself anytime soon?” he calls, straining to hear anything to indicate where Dark went. “If you don’t answer in five seconds, it means you need my help.”

“Are you sure  _ Illinois _ doesn’t need your help?”

“Wow, you sound like a thirteen-year old.”

“You  _ know  _ I hate when you instigate trouble for the sake of trouble. You want to make me angry, and then you’re mad that I’m angry. You need to figure out what you want.”

What Anti wants right now is for Dark to shut the fuck up and get over here, make himself useful, maybe put that pouting mouth to work. Nothing else to do, Anti wrestles his shoes off, then toes off his socks. It’ll give them less to do.

“How about you shut up and suck my dick?”

The reply comes after a prolonged pause too long to be smooth. “Try apologizing first.”

“For what? You being insecure? Fucking make me.”

Light steps finally,  _ finally  _ make their way back towards their room. He feels the slight breeze of the door shutting, the quiet lock ticking into place. The main light clicks off. Dark changed into his pjs, sitting across from him on the bed in navy cotton pants and Anti’s old hoodie. He switches the bedside lamp on, his face hiding more in shadow beneath the hood. 

“I believe you’ve made an assumption about me that we need to rectify.” He pushes the hood down, observing the glitch with no more compassion than if Anti were the bedpost itself. Empathy, his ass. Dark’s figure hums red and blue as he shifts away from Anti’s legs, getting comfortable just out of touching range. He doesn’t bother hiding the boner betraying his interest in Dark’s little hard-to-get game, keeping a brow arched but his eyes on his partner. He wanted something interesting. This could qualify.

Dark’s fingers play with the hoodie’s zip, looking down at himself and then up at Anti. He shrugs. An unhurried hand drags the zip down and lets the thick material fall open. “You see, I really have nothing to be insecure about.” 

He doesn’t. Satin isn’t as soft when it’s cutting off his circulation, the glitch instinctively trying to reach for the pretty thing next to him. Inch-wide straps trail down his chest in a curved triangle. It stops just before a second piece on his ribs.  _ Lace. _ Black, intricate lace bands across his middle, hugging his waist and held together by thick midnight blue ribbons tied corset-style down his front. Memory of a long velvet dress pops into his mind, the hint of lace forgotten about except in the occasional wet dream. It was a detail he set aside during their fight and failed to capitalize on. The jacket slips off broad shoulders and bare arms. Brown eyes evaluate him through long lashes. 

And so the game begins. 

He refuses to lose so early. Instead, he dismisses it with a low whistle. “New clothes, nice.”

Dark shrugs, running a hand through his hair and giving the dark strands a tug every now and again. “Not really. I bought these weeks ago.”

“Weeks ago?” He fails to keep all of his frustration out of his tone. “Then why didn’t you show me when you got them?”

“Oh, I didn’t want to interrupt. You were always  _ so _ focused on your phone.” He’s torturing the both of them, running his hands over himself, playing with the straps. One lets go with a particularly poignant snap against his skin. A small exhale falls from parted lips. 

“I was bored. I wasn’t the one buried in paperwork at a desk!”

Dark is the one to arch a brow this time. “Anti, how much paperwork do you think a demon has to deal with?”

He has no answer for that. He always assumed he made shit up to do once he ran out of other stuff, like, who fucking knows? Demonic memos? Ego schedules? Was he seriously just playing with him this whole time?

“Then why make shit up to do?”

“Like I said, you were always  _ so focused. _ I was  _ bored. _ ”

Dark keeps working over himself, building up tension and drawing it out, then releasing it. He’s not sure if he’s aware that he’s timing his hips with his hands. Every time he builds up, his hips seek friction, sometimes rising a little off the bed and sometimes rubbing back against it. Dark catches him watching. Anti feigned disinterest and looked at the ceiling. 

For a solid minute, he stares at the ceiling and pretends not to hear the suggestive noises he’s been waiting weeks to hear. And then that minute is over, and he can’t ignore the heat centering in his abdomen and the curiosity overtaking his eyes. 

Dark’s hands move with more purpose, pulling the straps to dig into his skin, pressing into the lace, pulling his hair. His words ring in his head. All this time, he was impatiently waiting for Anti to stop being busy? Sitting at his desk, waiting for him? If he knew that, they would’ve broken out this outfit weeks ago. Anti would have him bent over that desk, papers be damned and his stupid fountain pens scattered on the floor. Maybe he’d keep one, draw inky lines all over that toned body, practice his signature. He’d snag those straps and pull tight, leaving red lines with every cracking release. Watching him work himself up, his hands itch to yank Dark by those straps until his chest is within biting distance. As if in response to his thoughts, nails graze over Dark’s chest, tweaking his nipples and catching on black elastic. 

Anti’s body jerks against the restraint. Nothing loosens. 

His demon plucks another strap, cueing another snap. Not a masochist, right. Some of his scars crisscross his top, a longer one curving under the lace and down to his hip. Fingers skate down the line and contemplate his waistband before continuing down. He presses over his pants, hips rolling up with a satisfied sigh. 

This is so unfair, but Anti is not about to transport over there and lose. Even if his own cock feels uncomfortably hard in his jeans. 

He knows what he wants. He wants Anti to admit that Dark controls the pace of their relationship thing. That Dark is something Anti wants but can’t just take whenever he feels like it. That he’s not just something to do when Anti’s bored (which is totally hypocritical, but they’re both hypocrites and liars). The sheer indignation makes him want to transport out and defy that,  _ taking  _ him, proving his counterpoint. But that would just lead back into a huge fight, worse than the play fight they’re having today, and they’d destroy each other in the not-fun way. Months of cold shoulders. Wasted time. He almost resolves to not say anything else, waiting for Dark to get impatient with his own game.

Then Dark goes back to teasing himself, ignoring his prick and raking his nails over his thighs. When he does, his thumb catches on something underneath the cotton. There’s more to the lingerie that he hasn’t even let Anti see yet. 

“We get it, you think you’re pretty,” Anti complains, needing to provoke action. “Totally not insecure at all.”

Dark’s low voice sounds breathy when he looks over. “Could you be quiet? I’m  _ busy _ .”

“And I’m bored.”

“That’s not my problem, glitch.” Blue hues contradict the words, flickering down his side which is exactly where Anti wants his hands. Anti concentrates, imagining his tongue following that scar down, sliding his pants down until whatever it is he’s wearing down there is in full view. Lace, probably, dainty and black. There’d be a wet spot where his dick is trapped, poking towards the top of the low cut. He’d twist Dark over, pull the panties down enough to eat him out. Maybe he’d take that satin rope and tie Dark’s wrists to the headboard, not let him touch. It’d be fair. 

So immersed in his own scenario, he almost doesn’t catch that he’s right. Dark catches some of his thoughts. Although his hands are bound, Anti’s intentions guide Dark’s fingers to slip the pants down to his knees. More black straps stretch across his hips, matching blue lace covering where it counts. 

“Let me see,” he orders, but Dark just laughs. He rolls to the opposite edge of the bed and drops his pants alongside the jacket. He draws the covers back, then starts to reach under the bed. Every movement displays a new angle, but not the ones he wants to see most. Anti opens his mouth to complain again but manages to shut himself up. He shouldn’t challenge Dark’s commitment to making him suffer. Hell, he could probably go all night without Anti’s help out of pure spite. The only thing Anti’s accomplished is making himself harder than a fucking rock and unable to do anything about it. 

If he transported, nothing would change. Dark would still push him away and make him watch. 

Fuck it, it was a stupid fight anyways. 

“You don’t need that.” Dark pauses, crossing his arms. It makes his top squeeze around his pecs. Anti tests the rope one last time before admitting defeat. “M’sorry for talking shit. And you’re not insecure, you’re fucking gorgeous, okay?” 

Dark ponders that for a moment, letting the admission hang in the air. Anti swallows, unintentionally loud in the silence. The quiet is deafening after getting used to Dark’s indecent sounds. He circles back around the bed, pulling the knot secure again before brushing a thumb over the button on Anti’s jeans. His face hovers inches away, not close enough. 

“Was that so hard?” 

Anti doesn’t bother answering. What matters is that he’s getting rid of his jeans, sinking into his lap and playing with his shirt. He leans forward to kiss him. Instead of warm skin, he’s met with empty air. He nearly glitches from irritation. “Dark, come on.”

“Are you sorry?”

“ _ Yes, _ good lord, I said that already!” 

Dark lets himself settle, bringing him back into range. Anti may not have said ‘I love you’ since their fight with the Actor, but he feels it, lays it on his demon’s skin with his mouth. A fierce satisfaction sings in his veins once their lips find each other. At fucking last. Although together, although with every press Dark gets more comfortable against him, he’s still tied up and unable to steady him or dictate their movements. Dark still hoards that bit of control for himself. Incapable of fondling that supple ass, Anti dares a small thrust up. They both immediately regret the action.

“Are you serious?” he utters, flinching into his shoulder. He plants a kiss there after he regains his breath, registering the implications of the plug. His partner squirms, rubbing against his thigh with vexed compulsion. He huffs, bartering in an urgent voice. “Babe, let me take care of you. Let me make it up to you.”

“You’d better,” and the hands on his chest are behind him, fumbling with the rope. Anti’s hands are on him before the tie comes loose. 

They’ve been waiting for far too long. Anti shoves him down, too infatuated to take his time. Weeks, this demon has been holding out on him. The handle of the plug is slippery when he tosses it aside. Dark must’ve rushed it earlier. They’re practically wrapped around each other, touch-starved by their own stupid pride. Yeah, he flirts, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing because he comes home to this. Maybe that’s what really bothered Dark, being taken for granted.

His demon yanks his shirt over his head, throwing it next to his. His teeth are a startling white against his shading skin. Gorgeous, as always. 

They’re fucking messes, the both of them. Prideful, spiteful bastards with a penchant for sadism. Insatiable monsters that needed something else that wouldn’t break when they bite back. Through it all, the undeniable steel thread binding them together was how their messed up, jagged pieces fit together. Not perfectly, they aren’t that smooth, but enough to form a picture they both prefer. 

Like one of Anti’s favorite pictures, exhausted and catching their breaths together after finally pinning each other down. The rapid beat of Dark’s heart under his hand trying to calm itself, the strange but not unwelcome lazy tangle of bruised legs, the calm lull in the constant haze that is his pixels and the auras tuning out for a few blissful seconds. He loves this moment, not when patience runs out but after the thin line replenishes itself. 

One thing that he doesn’t love about right now is the incessant buzzing of Dark’s phone on the table. They both elect to ignore it. 

It continues to buzz past its normal ringing time. He can feel Dark’s brows scrunch together against his shoulder. When the phone continues to go off, he snaps it into his hand, a frustrated whine stuck in his chest. He pushes himself up, Anti’s breath leaving him under Dark’s elbows,  _ the asshole.  _

“Somebody better be dying,” he grinds out, staring at Anti’s eyes. He’s not quite up for another go yet, but if the situation is dire enough, he could get there if need be. The person on the other end replies, and Dark’s gaze whips from Anti into bewildered space. 

  
“Who the  _ fuck  _ is  _ Annus _ ?”


End file.
